375 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
375 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
File: barron.txt
|
|
Cont: Data on accessing the abandoned power station at Barron Falls, Kuranda
|
|
(near Cairns, FNQ, Australia)
|
|
Date: 18 June 1999
|
|
By : <predator>
|
|
|
|
This is a legendary Cave Clan epic. Following in the footsteps of Diode,
|
|
who had explored the area a decade before the Clan even existed, a lone
|
|
explorer motorbiked about 1700 miles to the far-flung northern Queensland
|
|
outpost of Kuranda in search of trespass, wicked hidden places and awesome
|
|
photographs of dodgy old infrastructure. The site was finally infiltrated
|
|
on May 24, when <predator> turned 28.
|
|
|
|
This rant is the personal log of the <predator> on the Clan's most
|
|
northerly Australian conquest.
|
|
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Cairns is about 2700km north of Sydney. Kuranda is a small town on the
|
|
mighty Barron River about 50km north of Cairns. Barron Falls is about 2km
|
|
out of Kuranda, and is part of Barron Falls National Park. It has its own
|
|
railway station with a line from Cairns, and this rail station, which
|
|
overlooks the falls, is where the journey down to the abandoned Barron
|
|
Falls power station begins. I originally climbed across the wier at the
|
|
top of the falls. This demands a risky trek along the railway cutting
|
|
(which has no extra clearance for people when the train comes around a
|
|
blind corner) then a scramble down a scree slope strewn with loose leaves
|
|
and railway metal. With some effort I made it up to the touristy region
|
|
built near the Skyrail tower. The cool earthy whiff of the forested river
|
|
is replaced by the esterified stink of toilet deodorant blocks and the
|
|
clank and squeak of motors and machinery which drive the cable car
|
|
station machinery. Who permitted this place to become a theme park for
|
|
rubber-neckin' tourists who haven't the guts to brave the trees on foot?
|
|
|
|
On the Skyrail side of the Barron River wier is a concrete inlet tower,
|
|
at the base of which is a heavy metal debris screen, which used to take
|
|
water into the penstock far below, but it is fairly well secured and
|
|
probably pointless to get into anyway.
|
|
|
|
The tourist displays at the Skyrail station say this:
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
1) Water power.
|
|
|
|
In 1885 the explorer Archibald Meston described the Barron Falls in flood
|
|
where the raging waters `rush together like wild horses as they enter the
|
|
straight in the dread finish of their last race ... (where) the currents
|
|
of air created by the cataract waved the branches of the trees hundreds
|
|
of feet overhead ... the rock shook like a mighty steamer tumbling with
|
|
the vibrations of the screw.'
|
|
|
|
Decades later these waters were harnessed to generate Queensland's first
|
|
hydroelectric power. Two hundred metres below where you are standing an
|
|
underground power station was carved into the cliff face. Water was
|
|
delivered through pipes to drive the turbines, two 1200kW turbo-alternators.
|
|
|
|
The substation, workshops and staff houses were built around the area now
|
|
forming the Skyrail station. Look out for the concrete engine mount blocks
|
|
and fence posts as you wander around.They are some of the more obvious
|
|
remains of the power station.
|
|
|
|
Delivering equipment was complex. It first came by train to a rail siding,
|
|
was transferred over the falls and then lowered by tramway to the worksite
|
|
below.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2) Power in the Rainforest
|
|
The idea to build a hydroelectric power station on the Barron River was
|
|
first suggested back in 1906. It was nearly 30 years before the dream was
|
|
realised.
|
|
|
|
The site presented many challenges : precipitous cliffs, torrential rain,
|
|
and raging floods were foremost. Hauling equipment from Cairns was
|
|
relatively easy. There was no road in the early 1930s but there was the
|
|
railway on the opposite bank. Getting across the gorge was another matter.
|
|
The flying fox solved that problem. A fragile bridge built across the top
|
|
of the Barron Falls failed to withstand the floods. Plans to build an
|
|
outdoor station had to be abandoned. Earthworks proved too unstable.
|
|
|
|
Going underground proved relatively easy. That is, once the tramway was
|
|
built down the nearly vertical clifface.
|
|
|
|
By 1935 those years of frustration had been largely overcome. In November
|
|
the Governor of Queensland offically opened Queensland's first
|
|
hydroelectric power station.
|
|
|
|
It was popular. Demand soon exceeded supply. In 1940 the two 1200kW turbo
|
|
alternators were supplemented by a 1400kW unit. Twenty years later the
|
|
present Barron Falls power station was commissioned. It generated 60
|
|
megawatts of power.
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Naturally, in a country where heritage is thought best sent to the local
|
|
tree shredder or mashed into landfill by a D9 bulldozer, the sad addendum
|
|
to this amazing story of engineering is that the place was decommissioned
|
|
in the 1960s and subsequently, very thoroughly trashed - a metaphorical
|
|
precis of the history of our species, it seems. Nature has nevertheless
|
|
invaded the skeleton and the station is now home to bats and various other
|
|
organisms, which cloak it in the timeless decency deserving of such a
|
|
noble corpse.
|
|
|
|
**
|
|
|
|
Barron Falls is, visually, a mightily impressive gash in the forest and rock.
|
|
|
|
From the far upstream (Kuranda) end of the station, you can spot a white
|
|
seam of quartz in the rock at the bottom / distant downstream visible end
|
|
of the gorge. If you trace your eye along this you will spot a small dark
|
|
hole, which was the power station's wastewater outlet and which is about
|
|
10 feet tall.
|
|
|
|
The jungle hasn't quite overtaken the little brown cement and corrugated
|
|
iron blockhouse on the opposite cliffside, but it's making progress. It
|
|
appears as a brown speck with a silver and black speck beneath it, in a
|
|
carpet of greenery. The black speck is where some of the sheet metal is
|
|
missing from the remains of the attempt to seal the place up with
|
|
corrugated iron, which provides the silver speck. The brown speck has
|
|
writing on it but there's no way to resolve it at this range. To enter the
|
|
station, this is where you must go.
|
|
|
|
The gorge is very, very steep. Getting down was going to be a nontrivial
|
|
exercise.
|
|
|
|
On my first attempt at finding a way down I met nothing but cliffsides,
|
|
screeslopes and sheets of entangled thorny plant life. I eventually asked
|
|
a local chap named Greg Taylor about the place, and he came up with the
|
|
name of a guy who had a clue, who gave me a pretty close description of
|
|
how to find the track to get down. Greg had a wrenching lifestyle change
|
|
forced upon him years ago in a car accident, which compells him to get
|
|
around in a wheelchair, and hence I was unable to even consider badgering
|
|
him into coming down the cliffside with me for logistical reasons. The
|
|
cliffside has not yet been fully converted for wheelchair access (and holy
|
|
shit you'd need good brakes to deal with it if it did) - the rugged geography
|
|
displays indiscriminate contempt for all who attempt to negotiate it, several
|
|
rock climbers have met their messy gravity-related ends in this setting.
|
|
The eventual journey, its photos and this text are unlikely to have ever
|
|
been carried out without the local information he provided. So if you ever
|
|
get this file, thanks for the info Greg dude. Oh, and thanks again for
|
|
sending my towel back to Sydney, too.
|
|
|
|
I had to look around for a long time to find the track which permits you
|
|
to descend to the bottom of the gorge. It has been deliberately hidden,
|
|
the signs which designated its existance have been uprooted but remain
|
|
lying in the nearby undergrowth. The access to the track is either by
|
|
squeezing past, or vaulting over, the black railing fence on the upstream
|
|
side of the large water tank. The first few metres of the track are very
|
|
degraded and crumbly, use *extreme* care getting through here - the
|
|
morbidly obese need not apply, and penalties for grip failure are severe.
|
|
|
|
The rest of the track isn't particularly safe either. It narrows to 20cm
|
|
at some places, with significantly fatal sheer drops just past its edge.
|
|
The remains of handrails stick out of the ground, rusty bits of iron
|
|
attached to rotting bits of wood by siezed bolts and disintegrating
|
|
strapping. Some of the track is heavily overgrown by blackberry or lantana
|
|
and might require a machete or brushhook to penetrate. It is a long,
|
|
winding, steep trail, at the end of which is the next difficulty - the
|
|
riverbed.
|
|
|
|
It is not a good idea to commence this trip when it is raining, and not
|
|
just because of storm flood waters (the weir mitigates this to an extent).
|
|
Rather, you need to cross the river, and the millennia of raging torrents
|
|
has slowly polished the rock to a high finish. When this is wet it is very
|
|
difficult to clamber around upon without a lot of defensive posturing and
|
|
experimentation to see if your next handhold or foothold will slip out of
|
|
your grasp when you really need to rely on it. Rain and falls-spray and an
|
|
unfavourable wind had lightly misted the rock surface, and it required all
|
|
my rock-climbing experience and caution to stop myself from sliding into
|
|
the swirling waters below. It was a relief to be off the rounded knolls
|
|
and buttresses, but even the horizontal surfaces are not to be trusted,
|
|
being lightly coated in living slime with particularly treacherous
|
|
lubricating properties.
|
|
|
|
I eventually reached the quartz vein at the bottom of the river, with a surge
|
|
of excitement. I hadn't fallen, drowned, or become lost. I couldn't see the
|
|
blockhouse from this vantage point because the jungle had enveloped it, but
|
|
there was no mistaking the outlet port. I had a quick look at it, slightly
|
|
less than twice my height and about five feet wide. Rough hewn - no point
|
|
laying pipe to get the wastewater out when you could cheaply just dump it
|
|
back into the river. And - it was thoroughly sealed off by a mesh of 15mm
|
|
diameter stainless steel rods, mounted in holes drilled into the rock. Hmmm...
|
|
would the access facilitation tools I had in my pack be enough? Someone had
|
|
obviously gone to considerable effort to seal the place up.
|
|
|
|
I didn't dwell on it as I searched for the path up to the blockhouse. Sweaty,
|
|
I clambered up through earth, moss and fern, using the occasional tree or
|
|
length of abandoned pipe or cable as an anchor, until I reached a heavily
|
|
overgrown and leaf-strewn staircase. Small plants were germinating in the leaf
|
|
litter, which was quite deep in places. On the steel railing hung the rotting
|
|
remains of tea towels and doormats... huh, what were they doing here?
|
|
|
|
I crawled along below the weeds and finally made it to the doorway. The little
|
|
place was only about a metre wide, two metres high. A rusted fan was
|
|
vertically mounted in the top of the roof slightly offset from one wall, I
|
|
couldn't tell if it was meant to suck air in or blow air out. I peered out
|
|
the window and back at the wall above : there partly obscured by foliage, in
|
|
the style of metropolitan building text everywhere in the 1930s were the
|
|
words in half-inch cement relief.
|
|
|
|
|
|
BARRON
|
|
FALLS
|
|
POWER
|
|
STATION
|
|
|
|
|
|
The entry blockhouse was littered with rotting junk. Old propane cannisters,
|
|
camping gear, mosquito netting, toothbrushes, clothing, a yellow biohazard
|
|
disposal container, disintegrating pulp Western novels. All the hallmarks of
|
|
makeshift human habitation long abandoned. But whom, and why? The psychedelic
|
|
multicolour artwork sprayed on the walls provided a clue, but nothing
|
|
definite.
|
|
|
|
One walks along a short corridor and, just past a rotting makeshift wooden
|
|
bench, is faced by another of the heavy welded stainless steel rod mesh
|
|
installations which block entry to the wastewater outlet. Fortunately some
|
|
kind person has chopped out a segment of this mesh in the bottom right
|
|
corner, which saved me hours of farting around with a car jack and hacksaw
|
|
and I wriggled through into the coming darkness. I put on my head torch,
|
|
checked my spares, descended some stairs and took a flash shot with my
|
|
camera, aimed at the impenetrable gloom in front.
|
|
|
|
Immediately about a hundred bats detached themselves from the roof and
|
|
stormed the doorway which framed me. Demonstrating astonishing aerobatics
|
|
they'd be pinned momentarily in the beam of my head torch and then bank
|
|
sharply before powering past my head towards the dim light of blockhouse.
|
|
When I'd remembered to breathe again I swept my torchbeam in front of me
|
|
to reveal a sheer drop and a large space behind it. Evidently whatever had
|
|
functioned as stairs or flooring here had gone. A significantly unreliable
|
|
looking ladder beckoned but I knew better than to use it in such a place -
|
|
if I injured myself seriously, any rescuers would have a hell of a time
|
|
coming to look for me.
|
|
|
|
I uncoiled my rope and put on my harness. The unkind individuals who
|
|
installed the anti-fun barrier had inadertantly provided me with a
|
|
super-secure anchor from which to belay myself down into the unknown. With
|
|
my heart beating fast, I knotted the ends and payed out the coils into the
|
|
black volume, clipped in, leaned back and started the descent.
|
|
|
|
It didn't last very long, my feet hitting the ancient concrete within
|
|
about five metres. I didn't know how reliable the stuff was, so I stayed
|
|
clipped into my rope while I sussed the place out. The place was a grim
|
|
picture of total devastation. As my eyes adapted to the dark, I could
|
|
start to parse outlines and generate a map in my head of what I was
|
|
exploring. What were these strange shapes around me?
|
|
|
|
I was on the generator floor. Below it was a sub-level with large cast
|
|
iron pipe sections, which had been unbolted and moved out of position. The
|
|
drop to the bottom was about three metres below the floor I stood on. The
|
|
irregular trickling of running water matched the visual chaos.
|
|
|
|
The whole building was encased, the cavity having been dug and the
|
|
building growing up, roof and all, inside it.
|
|
|
|
On my right was a rotting double mattress, plus more abandoned clothes,
|
|
empty prescription pharma cannisters (circa 1997), a cheap bulk-carrier
|
|
plastic bag with more rotting junk in it. The walls sported more examples of
|
|
Giger-esque spraycan artwork. Above me was a very corroded, arched,
|
|
corrugated-iron roof, covered in condensation, and immediately under it
|
|
was a large 8.25 ton rail-mounted crane on heavy iron beams. Sigh. These
|
|
metals were smelted before the days when the atmosphere was contaminated
|
|
with radioactive fallout, making them intrinsically special, products from
|
|
a less polluted era - no transuranics in these members here.
|
|
|
|
I later learned, upon discussions with people who knew about the controversial
|
|
construction of the Skyrail, that during construction a population of ferals
|
|
were using the disused power station as a base from which to launch their
|
|
protest activities. It fitted what I told them about what I found in the
|
|
station. I was amazed that anyone could actually live here for any period,
|
|
in such an inaccessible, damp, dark and hazardous place - but simultaneously
|
|
amazed at the dedication to forest preservation it demonstrated. And before
|
|
we go slagging the ferals at their lack of clean-up, it needs to be remembered
|
|
that the station was left as a proxy garbage dump when the power utility
|
|
gutted it. Ferals and suits presumably left the mess for similar reasons -
|
|
the effort of getting the junk back up the cliff.
|
|
|
|
On the generator floor itself were strewn the guts of the trio of
|
|
alternators. Huge, heavy six-pole rotors, bits of armature, and various metal
|
|
shapes whose function I had no clue about lay stripped of their valuable
|
|
copper windings and scattered about as if only contempt and gravity cared.
|
|
|
|
The green and black cowlings of the hydroelectric generators hadn't moved
|
|
from their regimented layout, presumably by virtue of their mass and
|
|
having been embedded in the concrete floor. The covers were off, their
|
|
exposed blades retained their original ordered configuration, showing the
|
|
fine precision workmanship of their long dead manufacturers.
|
|
|
|
The green machinery and heavy plumbing was to enable the flow of water to
|
|
be controlled smoothly. If the station had been running at full capacity
|
|
and suddenly the valves closed off, the pipe with the massive, internally
|
|
stored inertia of several hundred tonnes of fast moving water would tend
|
|
to rip straight off its mountings and pile up, mangled, in the bottom of
|
|
the penstock tunnel, with the additional bonus of flooding the basement of
|
|
tht station. So the system presumably had to be brought up to speed, and
|
|
also choked back to a stop, over a period of several minutes. This was all
|
|
manually done - no PLCs in this place. Hence, huge levers and handles and
|
|
gear-wheels sprout from the generators. I could imagine 1940's men with their
|
|
vests and caps throwing the switches, the throb and hum of the alternators
|
|
as they spun, the swooshing roar of the waste water as it splattered and
|
|
bubbled down the outlet tunnels. Did they have pride in the place? I can't
|
|
imagine that they didn't.
|
|
|
|
The station's long black power systems control panel had been stripped of
|
|
every switch, meter and indicator, the switchgear fittings and racking
|
|
rusted or slumped according to their constitution, what couldn't be
|
|
pilfered and wasn't indestructable was damaged or destroyed. Even a small
|
|
stepdown transformer sits forlornly rusting along one wall, with its lid
|
|
ripped off and windings gone. It was all a bit sad, the place has been well
|
|
ruined since its heyday.
|
|
|
|
Wandering around brought me to each of three short tunnels which took
|
|
tonnes of spent water from each generator and dumped it into the outlet
|
|
port. They've been relagated to the task of disposing of the seepage from
|
|
the penstock tunnel and from the rock cavity in which the station exists.
|
|
|
|
Another door brought me to the penstock, the large-diameter pipe which
|
|
took the speeding waters from the weir and fed them into the turbines.
|
|
The penstock tunnel promised much - logically it'd go all the way up to
|
|
the weir, which not only looked like an interesting place to go, but
|
|
which, if it provided an exit, would save me clambering across the river
|
|
and fighting my way back up the cliffside in the rain. It is rumoured to
|
|
have an opening half-way along it, which surfaces at the sheer cliffside
|
|
with a spectacular and rarely-seen view of the railway side of the falls.
|
|
I was sorely tempted, but stuck to the rules which had kept me alive so
|
|
far and declined to explore this confined and structurally unknown quantity
|
|
on my own. Aw, drrrrAT.
|
|
|
|
The biggest hole in the floor drops straight down to the sub-basement
|
|
floor, which is unadorned local rock submerged in a half a metre of
|
|
ludicrously clear water. Was this a large, once-covered access hole, or
|
|
was it left for future installation of another generator? I don't know.
|
|
|
|
I used a lot of film and flash battery capturing the place on camera, and
|
|
then realised I had to get out if I was going to make it back to the
|
|
railway before dark. I definately wanted to avoid the dark for the ascent
|
|
up the tricky track via which I'd arrived. So I prussiked out, coiled my
|
|
rope, packed and silently thanked the place for having me, before crawling
|
|
out and compost-surfing back down to the exposed rock of the riverbed.
|
|
|
|
The sun shone feebly over the lip of the falls, and I knew I'd have time
|
|
to get out in the remaining light, so I commenced the climb. I didn't much
|
|
care about getting wet now, so I waded through some wide, shallow sections to
|
|
cross the river, and clambered up some of the blockier outcrops to the
|
|
track I'd come down a few hours before. The effort of ascent warmed me
|
|
and dried my clothes, and by the time I arrived at the Kuranda station
|
|
platform and climbed over the fence (in front of some tourists obviously
|
|
distressed by my dishevelment) I was thoroughly knackered. I guzzled
|
|
rainwater from the tank behind the information displays on the station and
|
|
raided my wet, heavy pack for the last of my munchies. I sat and looked at
|
|
the place for a few minutes before I gathered my strength and walked back to
|
|
the carpark. I was glad I didn't have to kick start the motorbike! I rode
|
|
back to Greg's place at Koah Road, sweating relief and smelling of moist
|
|
earth, swollen with happiness that I'd finally done the Barron. Stuffed if
|
|
I was going to carry my climbing gear back to Sydney in my backpack - I
|
|
mailed it back the next day.
|
|
|
|
I had the photos developed in Lismore and was amazed anew - yes, I'd
|
|
really been in there. My bum ached after nearly 2000km of southward
|
|
motorbiking, and reminded me that yes, I had indeed done the travel after
|
|
all.
|
|
|
|
So there it lies, awaiting the next explorer. It's an excellent place,
|
|
and I hope you're enjoyed the story, even if it's a little long-winded.
|
|
It's a sad tale of deliberate neglect of yet another landmark chunk of
|
|
Australia'a early struggle to become a self-sustaining nation. We neglect
|
|
these relics at our peril, for doing so permits us to forget the struggle
|
|
which permitted us modern folks to have such comparatively easy,
|
|
electrically powered, computer-driven, air-conditioned lives - or should
|
|
I merely say - existances? Have we already forgotten? Perhaps in some senses
|
|
we already have. Time will tell us eventually.
|
|
|
|
<p r e d a t o r>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|